Ipswich Town F.C.

Ipswich Town Football Club (/ˈɪpswɪtʃ ˈtaʊn/; also known as Ipswich, The Blues, Town, or The Tractor Boys) is an English professional association football team based in Ipswich, Suffolk. As of the 2014–15 season, they play in the Football League Championship, having last appeared in the Premier League in 2001–02.

The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn professional until 1936, and was subsequently elected to join the Football League in 1938. They play their home games at Portman Road in Ipswich. The only fully professional football club in Suffolk, they have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with Norwich City in Norfolk, with whom they have contested the East Anglian derby 139 times since 1902. The club's traditional home colours are blue shirts and white shorts.

Ipswich won the English league title once, in their first season in the top flight in 1961–62, and have twice finished runners-up, in 1980–81 and 1981–82. They won the FA Cup in 1977–78, and the UEFA Cup in 1980–81. They have competed in the top two tiers of English football uninterrupted since 1957–58, currently the longest streak among Championship clubs after Coventry were relegated in the 2011–12 season. They have competed in all three European club competitions, and have never lost at home in European competition, defeating Real Madrid, AC Milan, Internazionale, Lazio and Barcelona, among others.

Espoo Blues

The Espoo Blues are an ice hockey team in the SM-liiga. They play in Espoo, Finland, at the Barona Areena.

History

The club was established in February 1984 as Kiekko-Espoo and played their first season in 1984–85 in the Finnish Second Division. In 1988, they achieved promotion to the Finnish First Division and in 1992 celebrated their promotion to the SM-liiga by beating Joensuun Kiekkopojat with a 3–2 series win in a best-of-five format. Tero Lehterä scored the winning goal and Jere Lehtinen assisted.

Kiekko-Espoo ended its first two seasons in SM-liiga in 11th place within 12 teams. In the 1994–95 season, the team made playoffs for the first time, losing to Lukko in quarter-finals. In 1997–98, Kiekko-Espoo caused huge upset by beating regular season winner TPS in the quarter-finals. Kiekko-Espoo ended the season in fourth place. In the next summer, the team name was changed. The name came from the dominant colour of their home jersey.

During the 1998–99 season, the team moved to its current home, LänsiAuto Areena (renamed in 2009 to Barona Areena due to sponsorship change). The first seasons in their new home were difficult despite the team signing many big names. Blues missed the playoffs in 2001 and 2005. In 2002–03, Blues had its best regular season, finishing in fourth place, only to lose against eventual champions Tappara in overtime of the seventh quarter-final.

Mail carrier

A mail carrier, mailman, mailwoman, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, or letter carrier (in American English), sometimes colloquially known as a postie (in Australia,New Zealand,Scotland, and other parts of the United Kingdom), is an employee of a post office or postal service, who delivers mail and parcel post to residences and businesses. The term "mail carrier" came to be used as a gender-neutral substitute for "mailman" soon after women began performing the job. In the Royal Mail, the official name changed from "letter carrier" to "postman" in 1883, and "postwoman" has also been used for many years.

United States

In the United States, the official label for a mail carrier is "letter carrier". There are three types of letter carriers: city letter carriers, who are represented by the National Association of Letter Carriers; Rural Letter Carrier, who are represented by the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association; and Highway Contract Route carriers, who are independent contractors. While union membership is voluntary, city carriers are organized near 70% nationally.

Postman (film)

Postman is a Chinese film made in 1995 and directed by He Jianjun. His second feature, Postman tells the story of a shy mailman played by Feng Yuanzheng who steals and reads the letters of people on his route. The film is considered part of China's sixth generation movement.

The director operated under a ban during Postman's production and only succeeded in screening the film abroad after smuggling a print out of the country and finishing the film overseas.

Plot

Xiao Dou (Feng Yuanzheng) is a shy and naive mailworker living in Beijing with his sister. When a coworker is fired for reading people's correspondences Xiao Dou takes over the same mail route. He soon finds himself indulging in the same curiosity, eventually developing an obsession. Xiao Dou chooses to spend time reading letters instead of socializing with friends or coworkers. As he becomes increasingly tied to the letters, he begins to intervene in the lives of those who write and receive the letters.

As Xiao Dou's amorality and detachment become more severe, his obsessions expand, as he engages in an incestuous relationship to his own sister. By the end of the film, Xiao Dou no longer considers the feelings of anyone else.

Postmen

Postmen is a reggae/hip hop band from the Netherlands; the original line-up consisted of Remon 'Anonymous Mis' Stotijn, Michael 'Rollarocka' Parkinson and Gus 'G-Boah' Bear.

The group was founded by The Anonymous Mis and G-Boah in 1993. They were influenced by Kool G Rap, Eric B & Rakim, Burning Spear and Bob Marley. On the road, Postmen play with a live band and have appeared on some the largest festivals in Europe.

Just before their debut LP Documents, Rollarocka joins the band and a string of hit singles followed. They enjoyed success in Europe, particularly in their home country of the Netherlands; their string of top 40-hits included "Cocktail", "Crisis", "U Wait" and a cover-version of Doe Maar's 1982 chart-topper "De Bom" (in collaboration with rapper Def Rhymz).

Postmen received regular radio-airplay (particularly during the summer season) although their second and third albums (Revival and Era) didn't reach former glories.

Postmen split up in 2005 because the three members had drifted apart. Anonymous Mis continued as Postman and released his solo-album Green in 2006. The first single Downhill features vocals from his award-winning rockstar-wife Anouk. They spent a year in Ohio with their three children to escape the pressures of fame, but eventually settled in Amsterdam. In May 2008 the couple announced their break-up.